


Julie's Young Men

by icarus_chained



Series: Shadow series [3]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Supernatural
Genre: Apocalypse, Gen, Homophobia, M/M, Recovery, Small Towns, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 10:52:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The effects of the tail-end of SPNs apocalypse on a small town, and two battered survivors of Hell. Aziraphale and Crowley are (somewhat) back in the fight.</p>
<p>Last in the Shadow Series. Set a few months after <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/387665">Forfeit of a Kiss</a>, and well into the latter half of SPN S5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Julie's Young Men

Julie's young men, they called them in town. 

There had been other, less polite epithets at first, other names spat once the rumours got started. Two strange men living in a widow's house. And once they'd been seen, once one of her neighbours had come over and stuck her damned nose in ... There were other names again. From certain sections of the population that looked down on the ... the way they were with each other. That looked down on what they had between them.

Julie might have been tempted to laugh at that, given what she'd seen, given what she knew they _were_ , except ... well, judging by their state when they'd arrived, it seemed likely that maybe someone Upstairs had looked down on the way they were, too. Ezra said not, said it was a misunderstanding and that they hadn't been punished or abandoned, but Anthony ... there'd been a look, in Anthony's eyes, as Ezra said it ... Julie didn't laugh about it. Not after that.

Julie's young men, they were called in town. But for her, they were Ezra and Anthony. Those weren't their real names. Those weren't the names they called each other. Though that wasn't saying much, because they didn't call each other much of anything, out loud. They didn't seem to need to. But she knew those names were for her benefit only, from the way they'd been offered, hesitant and careful, and with a flickering flash of fear. She knew they weren't the real names.

She didn't much care. They were Ezra and Anthony, and they were her young men. Even if they really weren't young at all, and really not even _men_ at all, they were still her young men.

And that meant she looked out for them. That meant she protected them. Because they were her young men. Because there was so much pain in them. Because they still flinched when she moved in a way they hadn't expected. Because they were polite, and helpful, and told her stories, and helped her put away the shopping. Because they smiled, sometimes. Ezra more than Anthony. They smiled, when startled into it, bright and uncomplicated for Ezra, sly and reluctant for Anthony, little flashes of delight that warmed her to her bones. Because they were hers. Her young men.

It had been just from the townspeople, at first. Just from the busybodies and the cronies, and the words that were whispered behind her back when she went shopping. Ezra and Anthony never heard them. Back then, they'd been too fragile to cope with going out, and she didn't begrudge them that. She remembered what she'd seen when they first came. She remembered what even being given clothes had done to them. So they didn't come with her. They didn't hear the poison that was tossed around, behind their backs, the snide whispers. They didn't ever have to hear that poison.

Didn't mean Julie had to let it be said. Didn't mean she shouldn't have blistered hides when she heard it. Didn't mean she shouldn't have broken Jossie's damn nose for him, when he said something too far, too much. When he suggested things they oughta do to each other, after what she'd seen, what she knew ... Her young men may not have heard that filth, but Julie sure as hell wasn't just gonna let it slide. She wasn't gonna let him or anyone else get away with it. 

And his nose had made a real satisfying _crunch_ , too.

It had been just the townspeople, at first. Vicious and sneering, filthy whispers in the corners, though they'd started getting quiet when she turned to look at them, started to look nervous, and even maybe a little bit ashamed. Just that, and maybe she forgave them a bit. Because they were afraid, and the world was going to pot around them, and there was all that stuff on the news, all those disasters and wars and murders, closing in on their little town, and maybe she understood why they attacked anything different. Maybe she understood them. So she knocked sense into anyone went too far, and let them be otherwise. Let them think what they wanted, when she knew the truth.

And then ... then the demons came. Then the end of the world stopped circling, and came right up to knock on their door. Then the darkness came to town, and suddenly there was something much, much worse than a few bad words for her to deal with. For all of them to deal with.

She'd meant to protect them from that, too. She'd meant to protect them. She knew where they'd been. They hadn't hidden it from her, and she could only imagine what had been done to them there. What had happened beyond the blinding, beyond the scars across Anthony's mouth. She could imagine, real clearly, and hell might've come to earth but it could march right on back again before she let it touch them again. It could march right back. 

That's what she'd thought. That's what she'd wanted. But it had happened so fast, and there had been so many, and she'd just been shopping and suddenly Jossie's heart was sliding around under her feet, and Sheriff White's blood was on her blouse, and she'd heard the screams from outside the store, and she'd never faced demons before, she'd never seen anything like that savagery, like the power, and the way nothing they tried stopped the bastards ... And she'd meant to go home, to go home and get her gun and stand between her young men and the horde, but she'd never had the chance, and then ...

Then her young men came to her. Then Ezra and Anthony appeared out of the sky on the high street, Anthony looking around frantically, trying to find her, she knew, and Ezra ... 

Ezra had been something terrible, then. Ezra had been something ... awesome. The way her grandma used to talk about awesome, not the way they used it nowadays. A thing of wonder and awe, and a thing of terror. Ezra had been that. A pale, fragile thing, a shattered young man, but there had been fire behind blind eyes. There had been fury. Ezra hadn't looked around. He hadn't blindly searched. Ezra had settled, with the finality of a fall from grace, on the asphalt in front of the post office, and in terrible silence had dared the demons to come for him. Had dared them to try.

And they had. Oh, some of 'em ran. Some of 'em were cowards, or maybe just sensible, and decided to run like God himself was after them. Which maybe wasn't far wrong. But others dared. Others tried. Because he was pale, and he was fragile, and he was only one angel. They tried.

They didn't get very damn far.

Anthony found her, while they tried. While she scrambled out of the store, out of the blood, and watched them try. Anthony, frantic and furious and searching desperately so he could find her, and keep her safe, and go back to help Ezra, go back to rend them to shreds for touching Ezra, and damn did she give him an earful about that. Standing with blood on her blouse, Sheriff White's gun in her hand, she yelled at him to quit looking after old ladies and _protect that boy_! Right now, mister!

He smiled at her for that. In the midst of his terror. That startled, reluctant smile of his, that flash of golden eyes and faint curve of scarred lips. He smiled at her, and Julie shot the first damn demon in range, and yelled at him some more. Because _Ezra_ , dammit! And he smiled. He smiled, and then he turned back, and he showed them why they shouldn't touch Julie's young men. With blood and fury, he showed them that.

Ezra showed them worse, though. Ezra was doing just fine, he was touching them, doing something, something fierce and shining inside them, and they were falling at his feet, but then one of them got in a lucky shot on Anthony. Then one of them winged Anthony's face, while he was looking to Julie, while he looked back just to make sure she was still safe, and he'd made a sound. Anthony didn't talk. Anthony didn't make noises, didn't open his mouth, but he did then. He made a sound then, something like a scream. More anger than pain, she thought, but it was a terrible sound. A horrible sound. And Julie was already running for him, already bringing the damn gun up, because hell if anyone got away with that, but Ezra ...

The way she heard it told later, the way what was left of her town talked about it, Ezra went a little nuclear. That was the only word they had for it. Ezra had glowed like fire, had shone something fearsome, like the stories her grandma told about angels in the bad old days, in the good book, and Ezra had walked, slow as dreaming, towards Anthony. Just walked. And any demon got in the way, any demon tried to touch ... didn't even scream. Just fell. Just fell around him.

He stumbled when he reached Anthony. Tripped on something in the dirt, in his bare feet, because Ezra couldn't bear shoes yet, because he couldn't bear the cage of them, and he tripped because Ezra couldn't see, because Ezra was blind, and as fearsome as he was there was still nothing in the pale shine of his eyes, and he had no shoes, and he fell. And Anthony caught him, caught him and pulled him close, and the demon who was too stupid to realise what he faced, the demon who was stupid enough to try and stab Ezra in the back as he fell ... Anthony caught that demon with one hand. And Anthony threw that demon away so hard he smashed through the wall of the hardware store, and hit something with a scream on the other side, and made no other sound again.

The others fled, after that. The others ran the hell away, like they ought to have done the first damn time they saw her young men. Like they ought to have done before they ever touched her Ezra, or her Anthony. They ran, and Julie could stop looking after herself, stop hiding between the Sheriff's gun and the wall, and go to her boys.

Ezra was shaking when she reached them. Ezra was curled into Anthony, clutching him tight, and murmuring words in a panicked, warbling stream, and he was crying. He was shaking, and he was crying, and suddenly Julie wanted the bastards back. She wanted them back. She wanted them too dead to run. And Anthony was holding Ezra close, clinging to him as tight as he could, and the darkness in his eyes said he wanted the same thing. Said he wanted to have done more than throw a demon through a wall.

"I wanted to hurt them," Ezra managed at last. When he'd stopped crying long enough to be coherent. "I wanted to hurt them. Not ... not kill them, but ... How could I ... I know what was done to them, I know ... how could I ...?"

Because they hurt you, she thought. Because they hurt Anthony, and I don't give a damn who they were or what happened to them, if they touch you they get hurt. If they touch you, you damn well better hurt them, or you'll get such an earful ... 

But she didn't say it, because Ezra wasn't talking to her, or even Anthony, and besides ... Besides. Anthony was talking to him. Anthony's hand was curled in his, and his fingers flashed against Ezra's palm, the way they talked to each other, and there was such a look in Anthony's eyes. Something old, and tired, and something that looked at Ezra like he was the most beautiful, terrible thing Anthony'd ever seen. Like he was the whole world. Something sad, and tired, and proud. And Anthony turned Ezra around, and Anthony guided Ezra's hand to her, and Julie had reached out to catch it before she really thought about it, and Ezra touched her living hand, Ezra realised what he'd saved, and Ezra stopped shaking. Ezra wrapped his warm hand in hers, and stopped shaking.

She took them home, then. She took her young men home. And the town was in pieces, and those that were left were in shock, or in tears, and there was so much to rebuild, but they let her bring her young men home. After what they'd seen. In the face of Ezra's shaking, and Anthony's desperate eyes, they let her bring her boys home.

Things didn't change after that. Julie thought maybe they should, maybe _something_ should have changed, but ... they didn't. The world was still ending, every night on their TV screens, and maybe they knew why, now, maybe they knew what was out there waiting to coming knocking again, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. Nothing their little town could do about the damn apocalypse, was there? So they just put back together what could be put back, and ... tried their best to ignore it. Because people, she found, were real damn good at ignoring what they couldn't fix.

So things ... didn't change. Except in the little ways where they did. Because Jossie was gone, now, and Sheriff White, and Pete down the hardware store, and Emma and her two girls had been in the post office before Ezra landed, and Gina at the coffee shop ... And her young men. That was different. People knew, now. Knew what she'd seen when they'd first come to her, knew what they were, and what they could do, and, just a little, maybe, what had happened to them. People may have been willfully blind around here, but they weren't _stupid_.

Julie's young men, they called them. Her Ezra and her Anthony. Julie's young men. Even still. They called them that. But behind their backs, in the whispers, they were calling them something else. And now, when Julie heard them whispers ... nobody's nose got broken.

They were Julie's young men, and she looked out for them. And now, she had help. Now, when Hell came a-knocking again, when Hell came to hurt them again ... It wasn't just going to be Ezra and Anthony doing the fighting. It wasn't just going to be them facing the demons. Because maybe people like Julie and her town couldn't stop an apocalypse. Maybe they couldn't protect a pair of angels. Maybe they couldn't do anything except be killed, like Jossie, or Pete, or Gina. Maybe so. But they could damn well _try_. She could damn well try.

Because they were Julie's young men. And she looked out for them. And that, whether you were a demon, or Satan, or the Lord himself, was that.


End file.
